Theater
The Cherry Orchard • The most unique theater experience of last summer returns as six top actors, including Sarah Agnew, perform The Cherry Orchard in historic homes throughout Minnesota. Moving from room to room, they enact Chekhov’s play about home and the tragedy of losing it. • 7/11–8/12, facebook.com/TheCherryOrchardProject
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The Sunshine Boys • Raye Birk and Peter Michael Goetz play cantankerous comedians. • 7/7–9/2, guthrietheater.org
Into the Woods • Sondheim’s fairytale mash-up gets an Asian-American twist. • 7/20–8/5, muperformingarts.org
The Vampire! • Bloody good fun on the U of M Showboat. • 6/15–8/25, theatre.umn.edu/showboat
Music
Mill City Summer Opera • Wear the brightest thing in your closet and head to the Mill City Museum courtyard for Pagliacci under the stars—love among the ruins. Put on by seasoned pros, it’s the region’s first open-air opera series, an Italian tradition. You’ll be speaking with your hands in uno, duo, tre. • 7/12–7/20, millcitysummeropera.org
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Soundtown • Jane’s Addiction, Weezer, Doomtree, and more perform at the festival in Somerset, Wisconsin. • 7/27–7/28, soundtownfest.com
Minnesota Beethoven Festival • Sharon Isbin and Branford Marsalis play Winona. • 7/1–7/22, mnbeethovenfestival.org
Sommerfest • Piano prodigy Benjamin Grosvenor highlights the Minnesota Orchestra’s summer series at Ted Mann Concert Hall. • 7/1–7/28, mnorch.org
Film
Can’t Help Singing • Technicolor musicals are candy on cake—over the top—and the closest Hollywood has come to Bollywood. The month-long homage at the Heights to Deanna Durbin, the starlet who revived Universal Studios, wraps with her only Technicolor musical, about a singing senator’s daughter following a boy out west. • 7/5, heightstheater.com
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Amateur Night: Home Movies from American Archives • Sixteen modest home movies loom large at the Walker. • 7/11 & 7/13, amateurnightmovie.com
Trylon’s third anniversary • The microcinema celebrates with two Buster Keaton films and music from retro-cool Dreamland Faces. • 7/20, take-up.org
The Living Sea • The Science Museum of Minnesota revives the Meryl Streep/Sting IMAX classic.
• 6/1–9/28, smm.org
Dance
Groundbreaker Battle • Pop, lock, and load, baby: it’s the fourth annual battle of the breakdancers. That anyone can spin on their head and live to accept applause never ceases to amaze. But these teams from around the Midwest, competing outside the Cowles Center, make subverting gravity look as normal as standing still.
• 7/21, thecowlescenter.org
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Ordway’s Summer Dance Series • Social-dance demos and lessons—it’s Dancing with the Stars for real.
• 6/14–8/9, ordway.org
Minnesota Ballet Student Showcase • Future ballet stars put their best feet forward. • 7/27, minnesotaballet.org
Thursdays on First & Third • Ballet, bands, and brats in Rochester? Of course. • Thursdays, June–August, downtownrochestermn.com
Visual Arts
UNPAC • What are all those people squinting at? Heaven, my friend, at least Luke Aleckson’s funky take on it via stereograms, those cross-eyed illusions that spring fake 3-D imagery out of 2-D pictures. He hides the trompe l’oeil pictures in wooden sculptures—you can’t get to heaven without a little searching, after all. • 7/20–9/30, artsmia.org
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This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s • Jeff Koons, Robert Mapplethorpe, et al. drop their bombshells anew at the Walker. • 6/30–9/30, walkerart.org
FLOW Northside Arts Crawl • Music and open studios in north Minneapolis. • 7/28, flownorthside.org
Grand Marais Arts Festival • An excuse to visit the North Shore village. • 7/14–7/15, grandmaraisartcolony.org
Events
Eat Local Farm Tour • You’ve heard the phrase “from farm to table,” but rarely do you go from table to farm. Here’s your chance: a one-day self-guided tour of farms supplying local co-ops, including Cedar Summit, Shepherd’s Way, and Thousand Hills Cattle Company. Prepare to snack. Wear boots. • 7/21, facebook.com/EatLocalFarmTour.coop
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Toast & Taste • The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum hosts top local restaurants and wineries. • 7/26, arboretum.umn.edu
Drum Corps International • The world’s best marching bands compete at TCF Bank Stadium. • 7/14, dci.org
International Tug of War • Will Canada pull America into the Rainy River, or vice versa? • 7/2, international-tugofwar.com